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All lies and jest. Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest – “The Boxer,” Paul Simon

President Barack Obama emerged from his meeting last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu with these words: “If there is a linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, I personally believe it actually runs the other way. …

“Abandoning existing assumptions is no easy matter. Students of world politics, like politicians, are prisoners of their paradigms, unwilling or unable to escape the state premise of state predominance and constantly tempted to cling to familiar assumptions about hierarchy, authority and sovereignty.”
—-James N. Rosenau, The Two Worlds of World Politics

Like an abusive marriage which should have ended in divorce years earlier, many people seem wedded to their unexamined political ideas, and will end up taking them to their graves without ever, once, having had let some empirical data creep in to challenge them. …

This week, Israel has celebrated its 61st birthday. The miracle of its existence, let alone its robust emotional, ethical and economic health and its unparalleled contributions to the disciplines of medicine, of science and of the humanities is simply astounding. This, despite the seven brutal wars, the intifada, the economic boycotts, the systematized anti-Semitism among some of the chattering classes of academia and within the diplomatic community and, most particularly, in the United Nations, and the imminent threat of a nuclear bomb coming out of Iran. …

Many years ago, a Muslim with little known, but very real terrorist ties was about to be appointed to the Congressional Task Force of Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. When I pointed this out to one member of congress, he replied: “Alright. Now please find for us some untainted Muslims or Arabs” …

Concern over the potential threat of Islamic terrorism operating from South and Central America to strike the United States is not new. As early as 1992, Iranian proxy Hezbollah utilized the lawless enclave known as the Tri-border Area (TBA) which conjoins Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay to strike Jewish and Israeli targets in Argentina . Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah are all believed to conduct organization and fundraising in the area. In 2002, Paraguay’s public prosecutor for drug trafficking and terrorism stated that since 1995 around $50 million dollars had been remitted to Hezbollah by Lebanese businessmen in the TBA , with as much as $300 to $500 million being transmitted to all of the active Islamic terrorists both Sunni and Shiite. …

On March 1st, I participated in the JCPA annual plenum in Washington, DC in a debate/dialogue with Ken Jacobson of the Anti-Defamation League and Jeremy Ben -Ami of J Street entitled “How Big a Tent for Pro-Israel Advocacy?”

Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street would like very much to consider himself a “pro- Israel advocate.” J Street is a new lobby in Washington made up, primarily of left wing Jews who are of supporters of “American Friends for Peace Now”, “Israel Policy Forum” and “New Israel Fund”, and the like. On their web site, they dub themselves as “pro-Israel”, yet by their words and by their deeds that would stretch the definition of pro-Israel to include the most egregious critics of Israel’s existence. …

On Thursday, March 6th, I attended a briefing on Capitol Hill sponsored by the New America Foundation, which served as a venue for a number of congressmen, notably Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) and Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), along with New America Foundation Scholar Daniel Levy to discuss their observations after returning from a recent trip to Gaza. Despite having traveled to both Gaza and Sderot during their trip, the congressmen showed video only of ruined Gazan buildings, which their translators and guides claimed were factories for “ice cream and biscuits” and a “daycare” destroyed by Israeli fire. They told also of visiting the American School in Gaza, which was struck by Israeli fire. Of course the long proven track record of Hamas’ use of these civilian centers as launching pads for terror was never once mentioned. …

You are taking office during a perilous time. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, acknowledged in April of this year that the Islamic Republic is installing 6,000 more centrifuges to enrich uranium. Elements within this dangerous regime, who would like nothing more than to enable the “coming of the Twelfth Imam” through a messianic apocalypse, may have found its modus operandi—the nuclear bomb. Thus, no issue will be more pressing during your presidency than the Iranian nuclear standoff. How you handle this threat will define your legacy. …